Interest Level:
Kindergarten - 2nd grade
In Tally O'Malley, the O'Malley family is on their way to the beach. The drive is long and boring so they decide to pass the time with short tallying competitions-- first with cars, then t-shirts, and finally train cars. Readers get a clear idea of what tallying is. The concept is clearly presented and the storyline is certainly one that kids can relate to (bored on a road trip!)
This cute Math Start book is perfect for teaching tallying! And... Jabar's
illustrations are adorable! As with all MathStart books, pages at the
end include ideas for extension activities --helping you turn a read
aloud of this book into a whole graphing lesson. Your students will
likely want to try their hand at tallying after a read aloud of this
book.
Below are sample spreads from inside this book--showing the very cute illustration style, the general amount of text per page, and the beginning of the graphing focus in the book.
To learn more about this book, click the link below. Please note that if you purchase an item from Amazon, they give us a small referral fee. (This helps pay for site hosting costs, thus allowing us to keep everything free for site visitors!)
Lesson Ideas
Stuart Murphy's suggestions: On his website,
Stuart Murphy provides
the following suggested activities to do with
their students/child in conjunction with reading this book:
Tally
Along with the O'Malleys
Pass
out our worksheet
for this book to each students and have them color in the pictures the
appropriate color (listed below the picture).
Then read this book to your student and have them tally along as you
read. At the end of each tallying game, stop and have your students
check to see if their tally marks match the tally marks in the book.
This book is one of the MathStart series books.
We LOVE the MathStart series. The stories are funny and cute...and SO
effective for teaching the specific math concept being targeted. You can
learn more about this great series of books by clicking on the book
covers below or the link above.
Or check out our list of the best children's books for teaching graphing: